


A Solitary Pleasure

by Luthien



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-10-09
Updated: 2003-10-09
Packaged: 2017-10-14 19:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthien/pseuds/Luthien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Professor Snape has a new hobby. Professor Potter isn't telling. Everyone else at Hogwarts is curious about this and one or two other things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Solitary Pleasure

**Author's Note:**

> Set when Harry is an adult; written in 2003. Obviously NOT canon compliant for the later books.

It started one Sunday night. Perhaps it had begun before that, but that Sunday night was definitely when people first started noticing Snape's changed behaviour enough to comment on it.

Professor Severus Snape was eating. He was eating his evening meal in the Great Hall at Hogwarts, in fact, and he was doing so with single-minded purpose. He looked neither to his right, where Professor Vector sat lost in the book she held open in her left hand as she lifted a spoonful of soup to her mouth with her right and very nearly missed, nor to his left where the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Potter, sat in his customary seat. The corners of Professor Potter's lips were turned up in the slightest suggestion of a smile as he kept watch on Professor Snape's every move out of the corner of his eye. Professor Snape noticed neither soup nor smile. His attention was all on the plate in front of him as he all but shovelled roast beef and peas into his mouth until his plate was bare.

By the time Professor Vector had rather absently felt around on the table, eventually discovered her soup spoon sitting in her bowl where she had left it, dipped it in the soup and finally raised it to her lips again, Professor Snape was taking a last swift sip from his goblet and rising to his feet in a billow of black robes.

"Not waiting for pudding, Severus?" asked Potter.

"No," said Snape and, with a slight, humourless smile, he turned and wasted no time in leaving the Great Hall through the door just beyond the end of the high table.

Several of the teachers looked up as Snape made his exit, and so did a few of the students sitting closest to the high table. Snape _never_ left the Great Hall before a meal was done. Not unless there was some dire emergency demanding his immediate attention. Not when there were Gryffindors to keep an eye on and, with luck, House points to be deducted.

As the door slammed shut behind the Potions master, Professor Vector jumped slightly in surprise and looked up from her book. "Goodness!" she exclaimed. "Severus is certainly in a hurry tonight. I trust nothing is wrong, Harry?"

At that, the on-lookers all turned their attention to Potter - who appeared quite unperturbed as he chewed on a piece of roast beef - and waited for him to answer Vector's question. They had good reason to expect that Potter would be able to enlighten them as to what might have caused Snape to depart so unexpectedly. It was common knowledge that Snape and Potter shared a set of rooms, but the exact nature of their relationship remained unclear. Snape and Potter refused to either confirm or deny the rumours, which did nothing at all to quell the speculation which raged through common-rooms, dormitories, grounds, classrooms and, even, staffrooms. This didn't seem to worry the pair in question. Indeed, they seemed quite oblivious to the whispers that followed them around the school. Their public interactions were above reproach. They did nothing at all when together in the company of others that would suggest that they were anything more than friends, but the very thought that Snape should possess a friend of any sort, let alone a good enough friend to share living space with, let alone that that friend should be Harry Potter... Well, it was really no wonder that the persistent rumours that Snape and Potter were, er, _friends_... persisted.

Potter swallowed the piece of roast beef, carefully placed his knife and fork on his plate, and turned to address Vector.

"He's got a new hobby," he said, and turned his attention back to his dinner, a look of serene unconcern on his face and just the slightest of smiles on his lips.

With that, both Vector and the on-lookers had to be content. Vector subsided back into her book without another word. The on-lookers subsided back into their chairs - and continued to wonder.

* * *

Professor Potter sat alone throughout breakfast the next morning. However, the conspicuous absence of Professor Snape from the seat beside him didn't seem to worry him unduly. His breakfast routine was exactly the same as usual: he started with porridge, as usual; as he finished his porridge, his snowy owl swooped down with his copy of that day's _Daily Prophet_ , as usual; he had an owl treat ready for the owl and gave it to her before she flew off again, then he unfolded the paper and smoothed it out flat on the table beside his plate, as usual; and he proceeded to read the paper, starting with the sport section, while he made his way through bacon and eggs with toast and coffee, all as usual.

The only thing that was unusual, apart from Snape's absence, was Potter's failure to polish off the food on his plate. The reason for this became clear when Professor Snape finally strode in mere minutes before the bell rang. Potter piled the leftover bacon on his plate onto a piece of toast, jammed another spare piece of toast on top of it, and wordlessly handed it to Snape. Snape peered suspiciously at the bacon sandwich in his hand, cast an even more suspicious glance at Potter, threw a poisonous glare for good measure at the few students still remaining in the Great Hall, and then turned back to Potter.

"I thought you could do with some breakfast," Potter said mildly as he folded up his newspaper.

"Thank you," said Snape, not very warmly.

"Any time," replied Potter, getting to his feet. "Don't you have a class to teach first thing?"

"Yes," said Snape, even less warmly. He passed his free hand across his eyes in a tired gesture.

"I suppose you'd better get going then, hadn't you? You wouldn't want to be late."

Snape's eyes narrowed. "Don't push it, Potter. This is all your fault and this innocent act isn't fooling anyone."

"I didn't force you to-"

"Save it for later," growled Snape. "As you so helpfully pointed out, I have a class to teach. So do you, in case you'd forgotten."

"Oh, I hadn't forgotten," said Potter with a cheerful smile. "I should get there with just enough time to spare if I leave now. My classroom isn't nearly as far as the dungeons, if you remember."

And with that, he walked off before Snape had a chance to respond.

Snape stood there for a moment, his face an ominous red and looking altogether as though he was likely to spontaneously combust at any moment. Luckily, before he could do so, the bell rang and all of the breakfast things vanished. This seemed to reawaken Snape's awareness of his surroundings. He whirled around, sent the last stragglers scurrying with a barked order to get to class, and stalked out of the room, taking a bite out of the bacon sandwich as he did so.

The third-year Gryffindors and Slytherins were waiting outside the classroom door when Snape arrived several minutes late. He opened the door and curtly ordered them inside.

The third-years quickly realised that Snape was in an especially foul mood that day. Less than five minutes into the lesson, one of the Gryffindor boys made the mistake of commenting that he thought he could smell bacon and was inexplicably docked five points. Things went downhill from there.

* * *

Snape had become used to his regular breakfast coffee in his years as a teacher at Hogwarts and there could be no doubt that he was feeling the lack of it throughout his first two classes of the day. Those unfortunate enough to be members of those classes also felt the lack of it. A record number of points was deducted that morning - even a few from houses other than Gryffindor.

Snape went in search of coffee at the first opportunity late in the morning, right after sending his first-year Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw class literally running from the dungeon.

He arrived to find the staffroom already occupied. Professors Sprout and Sinistra sat close together at the table, deep in conversation.

"- bacon."

"Yes, it was really very sweet. Pity he didn't appreciate it. I don't know why-"

"Shh!"

The conversation abruptly broke off as Sprout looked up and saw Snape standing stiffly in the doorway.

"Oh dear," said Sprout, a touch too loudly. "Is that the time? I'm going to be late for my fourth-year class."

"That reminds me!" said Sinistra, as if struck by a sudden thought. "I have to get the telescopes ready for tonight's viewing. The fifth-years are studying the constellation Lupus at the moment. The Ancient Greeks believed it represented the Erymanthian boar, you know."

**  
**

"Really?" said Sprout, as the two witches beat a hasty retreat towards the door. "What a coincidence. I'm teaching the propagation and cultivation of pigweed this afternoon. Porcine themes do seem to be popular around here at the moment."

"I suppose _Hog_ warts is an appropriate place for them," Sinistra said as she pulled open the door. "I've always wondered: What sorts of uses could one put bacon grease to, do you-"

The door slammed shut behind them.

Snape scowled all the way through his three cups of coffee.

* * *

Snape was noticeably twitchy as he sat in his place beside Professor Potter in the Great Hall during dinner that night. He wasn't the only one. Some of the Hufflepuff first-years were seen to visibly flinch when Snape's twitching gaze fell upon them, and every single Gryffindor took extra care not to catch his eye. This didn't stop them whispering amongst themselves.

"I thought he was going to hex Ian Bland for sure, but he just stood there, all sort of twitchy," said a fifth-year Gryffindor boy.

"So? I've seen him twitchy before," said the second-year sitting next to him.

"Not like this. He'd been drinking. I could smell it on his breath when he checked my cauldron."

"Firewhisky?" The smaller boy's eyes bugged out at the delicious, almost unthinkable thought.

"Nah. Coffee. And you should've seen his eyes, all red and weird."

"I wonder what's got into him?"

"Not getting much sleep, I reckon."

"D'you think he sleeps at all? I heard he prowls round the school half the night."

"Not lately. Not since... You know." The fifth-year nodded his head ever so slightly in Professor Potter's direction.

"Maybe that's why he's not getting enough sleep," sniggered one of the sixth-year girls sitting just along the table from them. "Professor Potter used to have plenty of stamina when he was playing professional Quidditch, from what I've heard."

"Oh, not that again." The fifth-year boy shuddered hard. "The thought puts me right off my dinner." He cast a quick, nervous glance at the high table out of the corner of his eye.

Snape was still sitting beside Potter and still twitching. He twitched even more when Professor Vector happened to look up from her book long enough to notice the contents of her plate and remark, "Pork chops? Unusual. I can't remember the last time we had pork chops for dinner. Do you, Severus?"

A couple of seats further along the table, Professor Sprout spat out a mouthful of pumpkin juice and buried her face in her napkin.

Snape didn't reply to Vector but instead threw down his knife and fork with a loud clatter and rose to his feet.

"Good luck," Potter called to his departing back.

Snape merely grunted in response, and slammed the door behind him.

Professor Vector looked mildly surprised at Snape's response to her question. "I suppose he just doesn't like pork," she said. "Or perhaps he's simply anxious to get back to his mysterious new hobby?" This last was addressed to Potter.

"Yeah," he said. "It's coming along. I think tonight will be the night."

Vector appeared to attach no special significance to these words and simply nodded before burying her nose back in her book, but several teachers seated nearby pricked up their ears at that. Professor Sprout sighed mistily.

Potter went back to eating his dinner. After a moment, the other professors followed suit.

* * *

On Tuesday morning, Professor Potter sat alone at breakfast as he had the day before. However, he looked rather less calm and collected than he had the previous day. He stirred his spoon round and round in his bowl, and consumed his porridge with much less than his usual gusto. He took the _Daily Prophet_ from his owl when she swooped down in front of him, but offered her an owl treat almost as an afterthought. She nipped his finger somewhat ungently before flying off again. After that, he spread out the newspaper on the table before him but couldn't be said to be showing a more than cursory interest in the contents. When the bacon and eggs appeared on a platter nearby, he helped himself to a generous quantity, but didn't eat any. Instead, he pushed the food around his plate with his fork, before finally arranging it in neat little piles around the edge.

Professor Snape arrived at breakfast with minutes to spare, just as he had the day before. There were dark circles under his eyes.

Potter had the bacon sandwich ready and waiting this time. "You need to keep your strength up," he told Snape in an uncompromising tone when Snape appeared about to refuse it.

Snape glared at him. He looked as though he would dearly love to make some acid comment about the sandwich in question.

"Or are you admitting defeat and giving up?" Potter added.

Snape's hands clenched, and he drew in a deep breath. He and Potter exchanged a hard stare. Then Snape picked up the sandwich, turned on his heel and swept out of the room.

Potter wasn't far behind him.

* * *

Potions classes that day were even more frightening than they had been the day before. Snape managed to be preoccupied, eagle-eyed, biased, unfair and vicious all whilst in the grip of a towering fury. He also gave every indication of being extremely tired.

When he arrived in the staffroom not long before lunch, Professors Sprout and Sinistra took one look at him and fled without a word.

By the time his last class of the day concluded, no student was daring to utter a word within fifty feet of his classroom. Even the Slytherins.

Snape was the last teacher to arrive in the Great Hall for the evening meal. He took his seat beside Professor Potter just as the soup appeared on the tables. He said and did nothing, and yet he managed to strike terror into the heart of almost everyone there through his mere presence. All of the students thought better of looking in the direction of the high table, and nearly all of the teachers thought better of looking down to the end of the table where Snape sat like a Dungbomb about to go off.

"Had a good day?" Potter asked once he'd finished his soup.

Snape blinked, and turned to stare at Potter. "No," he said.

At that moment, the main course appeared before them. It was roast pork.

"My day wasn't too bad," Potter went on.

Snape was staring down at the plate in front of him. " _This_ is not funny," he hissed. "You will put a stop to it this instant!"

"What?"

"Keep your voice down! It's your fault. That damned bacon. People _notice_."

"I didn't tell the house-elves to serve pork two nights in a row."

"You-" Snape was incapable of further speech. He got to his feet, pushing his chair out of his way with such force that it rocked back on two legs and very nearly tipped over, and swept from the room.

Professor Potter's face was a mixture of annoyance and disappointment as he watched Snape depart. Everyone else in the room breathed an audible sigh of relief.

Professor Vector looked up from her ubiquitous book. "He really _doesn't_ like pork, does he?"

* * *

On Wednesday morning Professor Potter once again sat by himself at breakfast. He appeared to be a trifle out of sorts. More than a trifle out of sorts. Positively irritated, in fact. He stared rather moodily into his porridge, looking up in surprise as his owl swooped down exactly on time with the morning paper, and all but grabbed it from her beak. Once she realised that he wasn't going to give her the usual owl treat she swooped off in a huff somewhat reminiscent of Professor Snape in one of his more ill-humoured moods. He spread the paper out on the table but those who kept an eye on such details noted that he failed to turn the page. He kept looking up from the paper and over towards the nearby door, and made no move to fill his plate with the usual bacon and eggs.

Finally, Snape arrived with minutes to spare before the end of breakfast, just as he had done the day before. He noticed Potter's empty plate almost immediately and raised one eyebrow quizzically.

"No bacon today?" he enquired.

"No," replied Potter in a too-even tone.

There was a long pause.

"I thought you would be done by now," Potter said at last.

"It would seem not," said Snape, and flashed a cold, deadly smile at Potter.

"I can't believe you haven't got it right yet. Most people-"

"I am not most people."

"Yeah, that's pretty obvious."

They stared at each other in a less than friendly fashion.

The bell rang, and Potter got to his feet. "I'll see you later, then."

Snape didn't say a word, instead turning away and sweeping from the room. Just as the previous two days, he was running late for his first class.

* * *

Snape didn't make an appearance in the staffroom that morning. However, when Professor Sprout bustled in for her usual tea and gossip session with Professor Sinistra she surprised Professor Potter deep in conversation with Hagrid.

"-so that we could enjoy doing it together. Instead, he's become obsessed with doing it by himself!" Potter was saying.

Hagrid blushed as red as dragonfire. "Ah, well, Harry, yeh know..." Then he noticed Sprout standing there. He cleared his throat ostentatiously to alert Potter to the fact that they were no longer alone, but the look he turned on Sprout was grateful. "I'd best be goin'. The flobberworms'll need their mid-mornin' feed."

He made his escape.

Sprout set about making tea in readiness for Sinistra's arrival.

After a moment, Potter got up from the table. He didn't look happy.

* * *

Snape was missing from the Great Hall when dinner commenced that evening. He remained missing throughout the first course and was still missing when the soup bowls vanished and were replaced by the main course.

Snape's absence was not widely regretted. None of the students missed his presence much. The Gryffindors looked positively gleeful every time they looked up at the place where Snape wasn't. Most of the staff were more than happy not to have to sit through a repeat of Snape's mood the night before, though Professor Flitwick was heard to remark, as he made his way through his own plate of pork sausages, "It's a pity Severus isn't here. He's always been partial to a good sausage."

Professor Potter did not share the general mood of relief at Snape's absence. He kept looking at the door through which Snape normally entered the Great Hall. The door remained firmly closed.

The main course ended. Potter looked at the empty place beside him, then at the door again, and sighed deeply.

"Treacle tart! My favourite," Professor Sprout declared as the last course appeared.

Potter looked at Snape's vacant seat again, then stared down at the treacle tart in front of him, apparently considering something. Then the expression on his face shifted. Suddenly, he had a determined look in his eye. It was a look familiar to all those amongst the staff who had been present the day Harry Potter had gone after the dark wizard Voldemort for the final time.

"I can't stay for pudding," he informed Professor Vector as he rose from his seat.

Vector reluctantly tore her eyes away from her book. "Oh?" she said vaguely, and then "Oh!" again, as Potter pushed past her chair and made for the door. Several students looked up as the door slammed shut behind him.

"I suppose he has a new hobby, too?" Vector asked Professor Sprout, who had watched the whole proceedings with undisguised interest.

"I think it might be the same hobby," replied Sprout, a speculative gleam in her eye.

"Oh, I should think so," said Vector, looking mildly surprised that Sprout had even considered the question. "Couples are like that, aren't they?"

Sprout was thunderstruck. "Do you know that they're...?" she ended the question with a delicate cough.

"What else would they be?" asked Vector. "Friends?"

"Harry and Severus? I suppose they've never been quite relaxed and easy-going enough around each other for simple friendship, have they?"

"Exactly. Now, if you don't mind?" Vector looked pointedly at her book.

Sprout took the hint.

As she settled back into her book, Vector couldn't help reflecting that some people could be particularly slow to the uptake when it came to things that were going on right in front of them. There could be no doubt that Potter and Snape were more than friends. Friends didn't share the sorts of looks that Snape and Potter shared when they thought no one else was looking. Friends didn't argue the way Snape and Potter argued, whether or not anyone else was looking. And, apart from anything else, friends didn't do what Vector had seen the pair of them doing when she'd chanced upon them in a supposedly deserted corner of the castle during the previous Christmas holidays.

* * *

Professor Potter let himself into the quarters he shared with Professor Snape. All the rooms were in darkness, apart from the light which spilled out from the doorway of Snape's study into the hallway.

 _Lumos_ ," murmured Potter, and the hallway was immediately sufficiently well lit for him to see his way, though not so bright as to alert someone in the study to his presence - particularly if that someone were preoccupied with something.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," said a high-pitched squeaky voice from inside the study.

Potter suppressed a chuckle.

"Oh, I don't know. I'd like to see him do it," sniggered a slightly deeper voice. "Do it! Do it! Do it!" the voice chanted.

"Do it! Do it! Do it!" came a chorus of other high, squeaky voices, picking up the refrain.

Professor Potter stopped in the doorway. He shook his head at the sight that met his eyes in the room beyond. "So you gave up on the silencing charm?" he enquired.

Professor Snape, who was seated at his heavy, mahogany desk with his back to the door, whirled around in his chair at the sound of Potter's voice.

He looked Potter up and down. The slightly wild look in his eyes and the hectic flush to his cheeks belied the cool tone in which he enquired: "Back so soon?"

Potter leaned against the doorpost. "I decided it was time to offer you some help."

"Really." Snape steepled his fingers beneath his chin and looked consideringly at Potter. "And yet only yesterday you were resolved to leave me to my fate-"

"Serves you right!" said an angry, though squeaky, voice from behind Snape. The speaker was, however, nowhere to be seen.

"Didn't the silencing charm work?" Potter asked again.

"Oh it worked, all right," said Snape, looking suddenly weary. The dark shadows under his eyes were more pronounced than they had been the day before. "The only problem was that then they refused to cooperate at all, though the quiet was a blessed relief."

"You're never going to get to the end of this by yourself, you know." Potter held up his hand as Snape opened his mouth to protest. "You won't, because they won't let you, but maybe if I helped they'd behave themselves enough so that you could make it to the end."

Snape looked at him, eyebrows raised.

"It was sort of my fault, after all," Potter continued.

"Ha! You admit it!" Triumph flashed briefly in Snape's dark eyes.

"I don't mean it was really my fault, exactly. I mean, I was the one who suggested it in the first place but you've only got yourself to blame for making them unhelpful."

"Too right!" piped up another voice from behind Snape. Like the first, this voice also had no visible owner.

Snape turned around in his seat, so that he was once again facing the desk. The desk was bare of all the usual paraphernalia that a schoolmaster - or a half-decent wizard - would be expected to keep there. A half-empty bottle of Firewhisky sat at his elbow, a squat, flat-bottomed glass beside it. Laid out on the desk in front of him was the subject of their conversation and the source of all Snape's problems since the beginning of the week: a deck of playing cards.

"Put me on top of the Queen of Spades. She's a cutie," suggested the Jack of Diamonds.

"You shut up or I'll do something you'll regret," Snape warned it, and reached for his wand. The card immediately flipped itself off the pile and buried itself facedown somewhere in the stack of undealt cards. The rest of the cards in play erupted into a chorus of giggles. Snape clenched his hand even tighter around his wand.

"You know, some people call this game Patience," Potter remarked, finally entering the room and coming to look over Snape's shoulder. "The way you play, it looks more like _im_ patience."

"Are you finding fault with my methods?" Snape pushed his chair back from the desk so that he didn't have to crane his neck to look at Potter.

"At playing cards? Yes."

"Then perhaps you never should have cajoled me into making the attempt in the first place."

"It seemed like a good idea at the time." Potter's shoulders sagged. "And I didn't cajole. I just asked. I thought that if I could get you interested in Solitaire then maybe you could work your way up to Exploding Snap. That's something we could do together."

Snape regarded him in astonishment. "Potter, you are an idiot," he said after a while.

"Thank you very much, and same to you," Potter returned swiftly.

"Potter, what do you know about me?"

"What?"

"Just provide me with a general outline of your understanding of the main events of my life."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Just humour me. I don't think it's too much to ask considering that I've been humouring you all week."

"All right," said Potter, sighing. He pulled up a chair from near the doorway and sat down beside Snape. "Might as well get this over with, I suppose. I know that you were born in South London, where you spent your early years living with your parents. Your father was a-"

"After that. What happened after that?" Snape sounded testy. It was a tone of voice that his students wouldn't have failed to recognise.

"When you were eleven you started at Hogwarts and-"

"Precisely."

Potter folded his arms in front of his chest. "You're obviously trying to make some point. Just get on with it, will you?" he said in a voice quite as testy as Snape's.

"Where did you learn to play Exploding Snap?"

"Ron taught me, when we were at sch- Oh."

"I attended Hogwarts for seven years," Snape reminded him. "Do you imagine that the game of Exploding Snap is completely unknown in Slytherin House?"

"I'd never really thought about it before."

"That much is abundantly clear."

"Oh for-" Potter buried his face in his arms, muffling his laughter.

Snape watched without comment.

Eventually, Potter lifted his head and asked: "So, do you want to play Exploding Snap with me?"

"Not until I've won at Solitaire."

"Not if I can help it," squealed one of the cards from behind them.

"You've really put them offside, haven't you?" Potter observed.

"I had noticed," Snape said dryly. "So, are you just going to sit there continuing to state the obvious - as is your wont - or are you going to endeavour to do something more constructive?"

"I was hoping that my offer of assistance would get a slightly warmer welcome. To think I gave up my treacle tart for this," mourned Potter.

"Come here," said Snape.

"Why?" asked Potter.

"Why do you think?" said Snape. "I haven't seen you all day. If you shut up long enough you might receive that warmer welcome you mentioned."

He pulled Potter closer, slightly awkward against the arm of the chair, and their lips met.

"Hey, look at that! It's the King of Hearts and his tart!" called out the Two of Clubs in its shrill voice.

The two men broke apart.

"Who're you calling a tart?" Potter asked.

"Not you, Harry! Never you! We like you!" said the Two. "It's that miserable, short-tempered, big-nosed, vindictive-"

"And greasy, don't forget greasy," interpolated the Queen of Clubs.

"Definitely greasy," agreed the Two. "We're all covered with muck from his hair, Harry. It's awful!"

"I swear I'm going to-" began Snape.

"No need for that," said Potter quickly, before Snape could reach for his wand. "Do you agree not to obstruct the outcome if I help him?" he asked, addressing the cards.

"Well, I don't know," said the Two, which seemed to be the spokescard for the entire deck.

"The sooner you let him finish the sooner you won't have to put up with the hair grease," Potter pointed out.

"Whose side are you on?" Snape muttered.

"The winning side," whispered Potter, and winked at him. "So, do you agree?" he asked, raising his voice and addressing the cards.

The cards muttered amongst themselves for a moment.

"All right, Harry," squeaked the Two, still sounding unsure. "But you're the only one allowed to touch us. No grease allowed anywhere near us!"

Potter shook his head. "No, he has to do it. What about if he moves you with his wand instead of with his hands?"

More muttering came from the desktop.

"All right, that's acceptable," said the Two after a moment.

"Right, let's begin, then," said Potter.

The cards sprang together into one large stack, shuffled themselves thoroughly and then dealt and arranged themselves in the classic "Old Blind Wizard" Solitaire layout.

Potter squinted at the cards that were showing face-up and rubbed his chin in a thoughtful manner. "I'd start by moving the Nine onto the Ten and then seeing what's sitting underneath it," he said to Snape.

"I'd never have thought of doing that," said Snape with a withering look. He pointed his wand at the Nine and it floated across to where the Ten lay.

"Careful where you put that!" cautioned the Ten.

"Hey, watch who you're calling a 'that' if you don't mind," huffed the Nine.

Snape tapped his wand on the card that had been lying beneath the Nine and it flipped over to reveal its face. It was the talkative Two of Clubs.

"Put me on the Three of Hearts," the Two suggested eagerly.

"Good idea," said Potter.

"I'd prefer to place it on the Three of Diamonds," Snape put in.

"I wouldn't go against my advice," warned Potter.

"Who's playing this game, anyway?" Snape demanded.

" _We_ are."

" _I_ am. You're just the go-between."

Potter cast him a fulminating look. "All right. Put the Two of Clubs on the Three of Diamonds. Then see what happens."

"I don't like the Three of Diamonds. We're a bad combination!" the Two squealed, and dived back into the deck.

"Told you so," said Potter gloomily. "Let's start again, and this time listen to me."

He poured himself a drink from the bottle of Firewhisky and sat back in his chair. He sipped his drink and watched as the cards shuffled and re-dealt themselves. He didn't say anything as Snape started by moving a Heart in a direction it didn't want to go and immediately got into an argument with the card.

Potter sighed. It was going to be a long evening.

* * *

Several hours later, both wizards were still sitting at the desk and still playing Solitaire. The level of Firewhisky in the bottle had dropped dramatically and Snape and Potter were both somewhat the worse for wear. The cards also seemed a bit worn out. They were certainly a lot quieter than they had been earlier.

"Try turning that one over," suggested Potter, draining his glass. He picked up the bottle and poured the last of the Firewhisky into the glass.

"Since it's the only move available I doubt anyone is going to dispute it," Snape responded coolly. He tapped his wand on the card and it turned face upward, revealing the King of Diamonds.

Potter stared at the card sleepily, and then his eyes opened wide.

"Severus, that's the one you want."

"Yes, I know," replied Snape. "It was the only move left, remember."

"No, I mean that's the card you need. To win," said Potter excitedly. "Shift the Queen of Clubs onto it and you'll have four complete sets, and then..."

Snape pointed his wand at the cards, and the Queen of Clubs and her entourage settled down on top of the King of Diamonds.

Abruptly, the space above the desk was filled with flying cards fluttering this way and that. When the air had cleared, the two men looked down at the desktop and found that the cards had arranged themselves in four neat piles, each with a King on top.

"They arrange themselves into suits," Potter explained.

Snape continued to stare at the cards for a long moment. Then he looked up and stared at Potter for another long moment. "That's it?" he asked at last. "I've been slaving away for days on end, having it out with disrespectful semi-animate objects, losing sleep, missing meals, and all for _this_?"

Potter smiled at him. "How about that game of Exploding Snap?" he asked.

"Is that meant to placate me?" Snape did not smile in return.

"What about if we tried something a bit more interesting?"

"Did you have something in particular in mind? Silly question, of _course_ you have something in mind. The question is, do I really want to know what it is?" He picked up the whisky glass and drained it in one gulp.

"Well, Solitaire is a card game for one," began Potter. "Usually, anyway. And Exploding Snap is a kids' game. But there are other card games, like Poker."

"You're not suggesting that we add gambling to this folly, are you, Potter?"

"Not exactly," said Potter. "Have you ever heard of Strip Poker?"

"No, and I strongly suspect that I'm going to regret expressing curiosity about it."

"Well, I don't actually know how to play Poker," admitted Potter, looking a trifle despondent, "but we could try playing Strip Exploding Snap instead," he finished, brightening noticeably.

"And that would involve?" Snape asked, raising one eyebrow sceptically.

"No, Harry! Don't do it!" begged the King of Hearts.

"We'll be good!" pleaded the King of Spades.

Their voices were joined by those of many of the other cards in the deck, all imploring Potter not to subject them to a game of Strip Exploding Snap with Snape.

For the first time since Potter had entered the room, Snape smiled.

The cards' pleas grew louder.

"I'm ready whenever you are," Snape said with relish.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Professor Potter stood in the centre of the room, quite naked. Wolf-whistles could be heard coming from the desk. Professor Snape sat back in his chair, minus his outer robe, but still wearing trousers, shirt and waistcoat, and surveyed the sight before him.

"Well, well, well," he said. "That was over somewhat more quickly than I expected."

"Do you mind?" said Potter. "When you said you'd played Exploding Snap before you conveniently forgot to mention that you were actually good at it."

"Given the sorts of stakes that are generally played for in the Slytherin Common-room, I _had_ to be good at it."

"Yes, I suppose so. I-"

"-didn't think of that. Yes, I know."

Potter shivered, and goosebumps started appearing on his arms and legs. Snape smirked.

"So, are you just going to leave me standing here?" Potter complained.

"Oh, I don't know." Snape tilted his head to one side, considering. "You look quite decorative, standing there like that."

Potter's lips thinned.

"I could petrify you and put you in the corridor to guard the door. We'd have to find you a strategic fig leaf, of course, so as not to scare the children."

Potter's face set in a scowl.

"Or I could find something else to do with you, I suppose."

Potter looked suspicious.

"Come to bed," suggested Snape. "It's warmer in there and at least you'll get rid of the gooseflesh."

Potter's lips curled into a smile. "Come with me and-" His smile grew wider as he was struck by a sudden thought. "Hey, we could play exploding Snape under the covers."

Snape groaned. "I'm sure I've never heard that joke before."

"Who said I was joking?" said Potter with a wicked grin as he grabbed Snape's hand and pulled him out of his chair.

"Hey, what about us?" called the Two of Clubs as Potter started to lead Snape from the room.

"I intend to obtain a replacement deck at the earliest opportunity," Snape informed them, and closed the door on the ensuing howls of mingled protest and jubilation.

* * *

On Thursday morning, Professors Snape and Potter were both absent from breakfast. The Great Hall was deserted when they finally dashed in together just before the bell rang. Professor Snape's robe was slightly askew, as though it had been thrown on in a great hurry, and Professor Potter's famously untidy hair had never been messier.

"You should have woken me." The irritated mutter came, surprisingly, not from Professor Snape but from his companion.

"But you were sleeping so peacefully," Professor Snape replied in an unusually mild tone of voice.

"And now we're both late," Potter pointed out.

"Just give me a moment and I'll get you a bacon sandwich," said Snape, striding over to the teachers' table.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Potter accused.

"And you aren't? I find that very surprising. You've certainly changed your tune since last night. How did it go? 'It doesn't matter how little sleep we get tonight, we can always catch up over the weekend?'" He smiled grimly at Potter. "I take it that now you are gaining a little appreciation for what I've been put through this week?"

"You _are_ enjoying this." Potter sounded resigned now.

"Here, take this." Snape thrust a thick strip of bacon and a couple of slices of toast into Potter's unresisting hand. "You need to keep up your strength."

"There's nothing wrong with me, you know. I don't need feeding up," said Potter, but he took a bite out of the bacon sandwich just the same.

"You _always_ need feeding up," said Snape, grabbing a slice of toast for himself. "Eat."

"I am eating," said Potter around a mouthful of toast and bacon.

The bell rang, and the breakfast things vanished.

"Oh for goodness' sake," said Snape. "You've got crumbs all round the side of your mouth. You can't go to class like that."

Potter lifted a hand and rubbed at the corner of his mouth with one finger.

"Other side," said Snape, sounding a lot more irritable than he had when they'd arrived. "Here, let me do it." He bent his head and applied his whole hand to the task.

Potter pushed his jaw into Snape's palm, closing his eyes and drawing in a deep breath as he did so. Snape's hand stilled, and then the tips of his long fingers gripped a bit more tightly against Potter's cheek.

They shared a long look.

Potter cleared his throat. "All gone?" he asked.

"Wh- Oh yes, you're slightly more presentable now," Snape replied. He cleared his throat, too.

"I'd better be getting to class," said Potter.

Snape nodded. "So should I." He let his hand drop and took a step back from Potter.

"I'll see you later, then," said Potter.

"Of course," said Snape.

Potter smiled and, while it could have been put down to a trick of the light, it was entirely possible that the expression on Snape's face wasn't all that far from being a smile either.

They left the room together, at something approaching a run. They were both late for their first class of the day this time.

Once they'd departed, a fifth-year Gryffindor boy carefully got out of his seat near the back of the Great Hall. He'd come in late from morning Quidditch practice, hoping to grab some toast on his way to class. Instead he'd been treated to the sight of something he knew very well he hadn't been meant to see. Much to his surprise, the scene that had played out before him had been sort of touching, rather than stomach-turning. Who would have thought it?

Not that he intended to say he'd thought so when he told everyone in the Gryffindor common-room about it that night, of course.

* * *

That weekend was a Hogsmeade weekend. Saturday was a warm, clear day and the Hogwarts students were out in force in the village. So were some of the teachers.

A group of third-year Hufflepuff girls on their very first visit to Hogsmeade were standing in the middle of the main road, trying to agree whether to visit Honeydukes or Zonko's first. Their argument was nowhere near resolved when Professor Potter stopped and asked if they needed some help. When they noticed Professor Snape standing there beside Professor Potter, a couple of the girls shrank back, wondering whether he would deduct House points and send them back to the castle for some imagined misdemeanour. However, Professor Snape mercifully said nothing at all, while Professor Potter suggested in his usual friendly way that they try Zonko's first and then they could load up with sweets at Honeydukes afterwards. That's what he and his friends used to do, he said with a wink.

"We're just going into Zonko's," he explained. "Something... happened to my Exploding Snap deck and I need to get a new one." He cast a sidelong glance at Professor Snape as he said this. Then he bade them goodbye, and a moment later the two professors had disappeared into Zonko's.

"So, Honeydukes first, then?" one of the girls asked.

"Yes!" the others replied as one.

As they made their way into Honeydukes, the bell on the door welcoming them merrily as they entered, one of the girls asked suddenly: "Hey, you don't think Professor Snape and Professor Potter might be-?"

"Oh, _them_ ," said the girl standing next to her. "Yeah, they are. Everybody knows that," she added dismissively. "But have you heard about Cassie Findle and Jeremy Davis? My sister's best friend heard that they..."

She continued to gabble on about the very latest gossip as the door to the sweetshop shut behind them, all thought of their teachers' private lives forgotten.


End file.
